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This invention relates generally to computer network-based systems and more particularly to a network-based method and system for collecting, analyzing, and reporting reliability data.
Superior product and system reliability is achieved when reliability tools are integral parts of development, design, manufacturing, and service processes. Historically quality control efforts have been directed toward minimizing the number of product units that do not meet dimensional and/or performance criteria before leaving the manufacturing plant. This limited approach does not suffice in ascertaining failure modes, to estimate the likely impact of a potential corrective action, or to follow the incidence and nature of product failures over time. It also makes it difficult to provide objectively determined product life expectancy data to prospective customers.
Therefore it would be desirable to provide a system and method to analyze reliability data for facilities running reliability tests to allow users to ascertain overall failure rates, to dissect those overall rates into failure rates for specified failure modes, and to obtain plots and parameters as a function of time. It would further be desirable if the reliability data were accessible at sites remote from the facility to minimize the time and effort necessary to compile and submit such data to a remote site.
The present invention includes a tool that allows the user to record reliability data, obtain unreliability plots, obtain Weibull distribution parameters, create control charts for those parameters over time, and obtain hypothesis tests to ensure reliability has not changed due to process variation. The tool allows users to identify variations that could affect the overall reliability of products through control charts that serve as an early warning for changes in product and system life by plotting shape (xcex2) and scale (xcex7) parameters. The tool also allows users to obtain plots and statistics for specific failure modes that may appear. A system of failure mode codes facilitates filtering of the data.
The tool allows analysis of failure incidence and modes of failure over time, and provides an estimate of the likely impact of an action designed to improve the reliability of a given component of a product. It also provides objectively determined life expectancy data for a product, which confers a marketing advantage. Moreover, users can access the tool over the Internet and have access to reliability data for a plant located anywhere in the world.